Read Online Necropolis by Michael Dempsey - Free Book Online Page A

Theodore Roosevelt. Felt pride at living in a city with such history. But now it seemed New York was no longer New York.  
    I entered the Hall. A radio with a little metal dog on the grill played “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me.” The room consisted of twenty workstations. Smartscreens lay like silver puddles on each one. A teenaged reeb sat at the reception desk. Her name tag said “Arlene.” She looked up from her reeb fashion mag and treated me to a grin like the first day of spring.
    “Hey there, playmate!” Arlene said.
    “Uh…” I looked around. “Department of Records?”
    “Bingo.” She touched her nose.
    “So… where are all the records?”
    “What’d you expect, hon?” she said, cracking her gum. “Shelves? Books?”
    I sighed.  
    She grinned and waved a hand. “Aw, don’t sweat it, sweetie. Spend some time with your dickenjane and you’ll do fine.” She perused me more thoroughly. “I’ll give you the dime tour.”
    She bounced from her chair and led me to one of the workstations. She pointed at the chair. I sat obediently. She slid another chair up beside me and leaned in to fiddle with the screen. Our shoulders touched. Her perfume was something sugary and soft. I turned and she looked directly into my eyes, only inches from my face. Not shy, this one.
    She’d made no attempt to disguise her appearance. Her white pageboy tresses were curled under at the ends, and she was dressed in a Sloppy Joe sweater and powder-blue slacks. Damned cute, black nails and gold-flecked irises notwithstanding.
    She pointed to the smartscreen, now floating at eye level. “Did you have computers in your pre-life?”
    “How old do I look?” I said.
    “Looks got nothing to do with it, sugar.” She smiled again, a blast of youthful good will. “Don’t suppose you got an interface.”
    “A what?”
    She pulled back a strand of her hair. A tiny tattoo of an old-fashioned plug connector glowed behind her ear. “Some kind of wireless device?” I ventured.
    She grinned like I’d said something cute. “Close enough.”
    I felt vertiginous. “When I died, our toasters didn’t talk back to us.”
    She slapped my thigh. “Grade school stuff! Now, whaddaya need?” I explained what I was looking for. Arlene blinked and subvocalized something. Seconds later, databases were springing into the air, replaced by others almost as quickly as they appeared. Information waterfalled down the holographic display.
    “Bill Gates, eat your heart out,” I murmured.
    “Who?”
    How the hell could she not know about—
    “Here we go. Now we’re cooking with gas.”
    I watched in admiration over the next five minutes as she tightened the net she’d thrown out into the info-verse. Wonder if they’re still calling it the internet , I thought.
    Then, abruptly, a single document floated.
    “Oh, I’m good,” she said.
    My heart stopped in my chest.  
    It was the Metro section of The New York Times , dated November 1, 2012. The headline read: DETECTIVE KILLED IN HOLD-UP. The columns of copy enclosed a photograph of Elise and me. I was in dress blues, fresh from the Academy. I looked ridiculously naïve. Elise was smiling, arm wrapped around my shoulder with that mischievous smile she got. I didn’t remember the occasion. Who’d taken the picture? Elise’s mother? Bart?
    “Hey, that’s you,” observed Arlene. “You were cute.” I gave her a look. “Are cute, I mean.”
    I gripped my wedding ring, tapping my forehead.  
    “Hey,” said Arlene, touching my arm. “Hey.”

    (Special to the New York Times )  
    Brooklyn Detective Paul Donner and his wife, Elise Donner, were killed last night in Huan’s Grocery, near Lincoln Center.
    According to police, Donner and his wife, a federal regulator, unknowingly walked in on a robbery in progress. Both were shot with a small caliber handgun.
    Detective Jeremiah Kinderman stated that Donner was off-duty. “He was an experienced cop,” said